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  IRONCRAFT

  Copyright © 2021 by Pedro Gabriel.

  All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  For information contact :

  [email protected]

  https://thedumahproject.com/

  Book editing by Stephen Little

  Book and Cover design by Devdiaart

  Book formatting template by Derek Murphy of Creativindie Design

  ISBN: 978-989-33-2136-2

  First Edition: July 2021

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Dedication

  I dedicate this book to my beautiful wife Claire Domingues. Thank you for being my pillar. Without your support and encouragement, none of this would have been possible.

  Prologue

  In those days, Aigonz, the creator, drew lots over the cosmos, and bestowed upon the sylphs the heights of the skies and heavens, and the depths of the earth and sea. But the land between the heights and depths was to belong to mortal beings, made of flesh. These were the logizkal, the giants of old.

  The giants were thrice the size of a man of today. They were as wise as their beards were long. Their arms and legs were thick as logs, and strong as bears. And they had a third eye on their forehead, so they could gaze upward as well as forward. They erected the great cities of yore, which now exist only in legend.

  Yet, mighty as they were, the giants had no king, nor did they yearn for one.

  This is how things were before kings came to be.

  In those days, greenness paved the soil as a flowery tapestry. Trees covered the hills as moss covers a rock. All the land was then gathered in one place, because Thebel was still undivided. And no one was ever thirsty, for there was no want for fresh water. There were no deserts where mortals dwelt.

  That is how things were before the Great Calamity, when deserts spread throughout the world.

  In those days, the Song of Aigonz echoed throughout Thebel. The swallows sang during the day, and the crickets during the night. The winds blew their flutes, the seas drummed their cymbals, the rivers played their harps, the rains shook their timbrels, and the stars sounded their crystal trumpets.

  In those days, Silence had not yet befallen the land of the living.

  ***

  One night, in the five hundred and sixteenth year of his pontificate, Faris-Romil, the wisest of all giants, was assailed by a legion of nightmares.

  Faris saw himself walking in a garden, pleasant to the eyes and soothing to the soul. He then looked and saw a heart in the middle of the garden. This heart hovered over the ground, and burned without consuming itself. With each beat, it diffused the sap running through the veins of the grass and leaves. Faris recognized this heart: He had been the one to paint it in the stained glass at Ophir’s palace.

  Then, Faris felt the ground faltering under his feet, as if the foundations of the earth had broken. The ground was rent in twain and the abyss underneath opened its mouth, whence cruel flames emerged. These flames consumed everything around them, unlike the flames issuing from the heart. There was also a fog, reeking of sulphur from the depths: It scorched eyes and burned nostrils. This fog went up and seemed to devour the skies, turning them dark and bloody red.

  Soon, there was nothing left of the garden but a carpet of ash and charred tree trunks: a land divided by the chasm. The garden was now a desert of cinder. And Faris-Romil felt a great thirst in his dried throat.

  The abyss kept growing. It grew so large the heart tumbled inside it, as if devoured by a gaping maw. Faris-Romil felt all hope sapping from his limbs. For if the heart was gone, then the garden would never have life ever again.

  But the vision was not yet over. As the abyss ate the heart, it also did vomit seven eldritch beasts. Oh, accursed exchange! Their features were abominable, their jaws foaming with rage! Their throats howled, and wounded the ears! Above the seven beasts, the pontiff saw a golden crown pierced by an iron sceptre.

  Afterwards, the seven beasts ran to Faris-Romil. He fell on the dirt with his eyes clouded with fear. The beasts did not rip his neck, though. Rather, they passed through him as if he was the vision and they the beings made of flesh and bone. Their wickedness overflowed from the garden and they set their eyes on Ophir, the Golden City. They tore down its walls, they put out its beacons, and they broke through its gates. They waged war against Ophir and brought it the flames of the underworld whence they came.

  Then… the gilded glow of the city was no more. Only the dark of the abyss remained…

  ***

  Faris-Romil awoke. He saw himself once again at his house, in the magnificent city of Melchy-Zedek. It had been a dream… just a dream…

  Soaked with sweat, and exhausted as if he had not slumbered at all, Faris-Romil rose from his bed and dragged his feet to the balcony sprawling outside his room. He sought solace in the dawn’s fresh breeze, perfumed with the salt of the sea beyond. Maybe he could find comfort in the rainbow colors of the sunrise, or in the glitter of the lingering starlight.

  Yet such was not to be. Carmel, the sun, did not rise. The skies were like pitch. He could not even see the sweet light of Ararat, the moon, which gives rest to the troubled spirits.

  The pontiff found this darkness uncanny. His astronomical charts did not predict an eclipse for that date, either of the sun or of the moon. So, Faris read the heavens, searching for an answer. When he found it, he fell silent on his knees. It seemed his nightmare had come to life!

  And so he remained, on his knees, as if turned to stone. There he stayed in silent prayer for minutes, hours, centuries—he could not tell. But at last, the doors of his room thundered, and a herald broke through his quarters, livid with urgency:

  “Oh venerable pontiff, I bear terrible tidings,” said he.

  Faris-Romil did not turn from his balcony. He kept gazing at the heavens. He felt that he already expected the messenger’s visit, though he had not yet divined the exact contents of the message. All he knew was it could not be pleasant. As for the herald, he paid no mind to the pontiff’s lethargy, nor did he take time to wonder as to why he had found him out of the bed, on his knees, gazing at the sky during the wee hours of night. He was one of the young acolytes at the Temple of Salem, Oiskal by name.

  “Venerable Pontiff, I was sent by Bilidio, the high priest! He enjoined me to tell you these words: The eternal flames at the altar have gone out! The Temple of Salem rests in total darkness!”

  Faris trembled, though only a moment. It was as if surprise had shaken his entrails only till he remembered he should not be surprised by anything just then.

  “Venerable Pontiff?” Oiskal feared he had delivered his message to a deceased body, buttressed on his knees by the rigidity proper of a corpse.

  “Tell me,” the pontiff replied “What do you see high above in the heavens?”

  The young acolyte drew near. At first, he had felt relief for hearing the pontiff speak; but now these words troubled him the more. There was dread in them, so much that Oiskal wished Faris-Romil had not spoken at all.

  “Teacher, I see the stars. The stars of the night sky, as I am supposed to.”

  “Well you say that you see the stars of the night sky, though you do not see what you are supposed to. Look closer, child.”

  Oiskal looked and looked, scratching his still sparse beard. So eager was he
to find the answer swiftly, he did not even pay heed to the things he was looking at. There seemed to be no difference between the stars that night or of any other. They were so many, and all seemed the same.

  “Venerable father, I am a humble acolyte at the Temple of Salem. I am not yet instructed on the art of reading the heavens. Please teach me so I may see what you see.”

  “Again you speak well when you say ‘I am not yet instructed on this art,’ for any student could easily understand the matter with a simple glimpse. And if you serve at the Temple of Salem, so much more should you know. Child, have you glanced upon your star, the one who kept the altar’s eternal fires lit?”

  Oiskal felt a sudden weight on his stomach. And this foreboding caused him to raise his three eyes, as they looked up, up to the north, over the seas. There he saw a great emptiness, for he could not find the fire that was Salem, the north star which guided ships and wayfarers.

  “The Queen of the Stars… She… has gone out…”

  “Indeed, it be so. The altars did not lose their flame. For it is possible for a river to be dried up while its source still runs; yet it is not possible for a source to dry up without drying up the river as well. The fire of Salem is gone… and so too are the fires at the Temple which were born of it.”

  These words tore Oiskal’s heart. Faris-Romil was the greatest prophet the world had ever known. He spoke the language of the stars, and none of his visions had failed to come to pass. This was a terrible premonition. Without the Temple of Salem to serve, how could the acolyte ever be ordained? Would there even be a world to serve after that day? Or would they all perish in an eternal night? Faris noticed this and, for the first time in hours, rose up: The pontiff’s hand was now more needed than his knees. He wiped away the cold sweat on the poor acolyte’s forehead, saying:

  “I ask your forgiveness, child: I had forgotten about your youth, and did not mean to take it away from you. Notwithstanding, I wish to caution you as to the great calamities you will surely meet from this night onward. The People of the Stars are convulsing tonight. As the glow of the stars reaches the land of mortals, so too does the darkness of their shadow. Yet I am sure Aigonz will not forsake us.”

  Oiskal swallowed his tears and wiped away the rest of his sweat:

  “Venerable Pontiff, could it be possible that Salem would have gone absent for just a while? Could Salem have departed to meet the Black Stars in the far away heavens, away from the sight of mortals?”

  “May the heavens allow you to be right! But nay, I believe not thus. The Queen of the Stars has always felt great affection for us mortals. Salem set her throne at the north skies for a reason: She would never seek anything more than that, as the Black Stars did. I do not know what else to tell you. All of this is as new to me in my old age as it is for you in your youth. Never did I see a Salem-less heaven till this night. Nay, I do not know what else to tell you.”

  In sooth, Faris-Romil was not entirely truthful. There was something else he could tell, since he had read the heavens not only to the north, but also to the south, where there was another empty patch in the celestial dome. But he would not speak further, lest the poor acolyte would be tormented by mere conjectures. Oiskal needed to be hopeful, and draw strength from this hope, in order to carry out the mission Faris was about to give him.

  “Now, my dearest child, go and say this to Bilidio, the high priest: ‘Send heralds to all the cities of the Republic! Gather the Council, and let us deliberate on all of this.’ Go, and do not allow anything to delay your steps!”

  “Venerable father, so I shall! Not even a sylph will be able to outrun me!” So he spake, and was there no more.

  Good it was for him to depart so swiftly, for his mission distracted him from an even worse vision. A shadow burst in the firmaments, and spread like a black stain on a beautiful vestment. So it advanced, devouring the glow of all the stars in the sky. Horeb and Bethel were visible no more, nor even Nebo. That day, the sun did not come out of the horizon, though no one noticed it since a wall of clouds in the nearer skies covered the dark nebula in the farthest heavens. And these clouds melted as rain, and hid away these strange celestial phenomena from all those about to wake up.

  So it was raining when the heralds of the Temple, mounted on their swift hippogriffs, soared away from Melchy-Zedek toward every horizon, wherever there would be giants in the land.

  CHAPTER

  1

  Skillot's Path

  Three days prior to that fateful night, a giant named Skillotz observed the most important date of his yet brief life: his hundredth birthday.

  Skillotz dwelt in the south, by the hill of Enoch, bordering the Forbidden Lands. Since times before memory, the southern giants had stood guard at these borders, lest the monsters should return and lay waste upon the land once more. Unlike their northern brethren, who grew more attuned to scholarship, and astronomy, and worship, the southern giants had hardened their limbs with hunts and scoutings. This was a training for the day the monsters might come, since many animals in those austral lands were twice the size of their kind today.

  For this reason, it was customary for a young giant to prove himself worthy of adulthood on the occasion of his first centennial. The youngling should journey to the sea, and dive into the salty waters, and touch the same seabed from which clay the giants had been formed in the beginning. As proof of his feat, the giant should bring back to his hometown a shell, or a pearl, or something that could only be found at the depths of the sea.

  This was Skillotz’s mission. The stakes were higher for him, however, than for any of his brethren. Skillotz was not a mere giant, though he seemed quite unremarkable, and his beard had not sprouted yet. For Skillotz was also son of Talizima, the councilor of the town of Enoch. Each city or village would choose from amongst all its inhabitants seven giants of great worth, to be the judges of that settlement. The judges, in turn, would choose from themselves one of special virtue and wisdom, and place a linen cape over his shoulders: This would be the city’s councilor. Only such a one could speak at the Council of Peoples, where all giantkind was represented, to discuss matters of the greatest importance. Who amongst the town would be more revered than its councilor? So Talizima was councilor of Enoch, and Skillotz his son.

  “Are you prepared, son?”

  There was a tinge of frustration in Talizima’s voice. Nor just in his voice—Skillotz felt it also in his own body: As his father drew the ritual runes on his back, the paternal finger pressed his flesh harder than what was required for the ochre pigment to dye his skin.

  “Of course, father. I have been yearning for this day since I was born. I am ready.”

  “Yearning is not preparing. What preparations have you done? For I have seen nothing but idleness in the past few days.”

  Talizima placed his strong hands on Skillotz’s shoulders and forcefully turned him around. It was time to paint the runes on the young giant’s chest, and also for Skillotz to face his father’s face.

  “Where is your club? Are you heading into the wilderness without one?”

  “No, father. I have carved a club, just as you asked me to.” He pointed towards a bludgeon leaning upside down on the wall of the house.

  “Yea, I have seen that, yet wondered what it was. Certainly not a club. A club is no mere log of lumber: It must be properly carved.” Talizima abandoned his ceremonial rite and went to pick the bludgeon up. “Look at this, and this, and this”—and he successively pointed out every single lump, cleft, and splinter in his son’s club, tainting it ochre all around. Then, he twisted his nose and lips to ask, “And what kind of wood be this?”

  “It was the strongest kind I found. I walked the woods for several hours, and picked up many logs, and bent them as I could with these two hands. This is the one that arched less. It is strong.”

  “Is it oak? No stronger wood than oak!”

  “Well… I… I just picked from the… I…”

  “You don’t even know
the tree this was made from! It could be a willow’s withy for all you know!”

  Talizima threw his son’s work on the floor and walked to his trophy wall, where his own club lay athwart two bronze hooks. It was smooth and polished, as a piece of fine furniture. Indeed, it had nothing to do with Skillotz’s clumsy bludgeon: The pommel was perfectly spherical, and tassels ran down from it with beads made of bone shards from past hunts. The handle had been carved so as to perfectly fit each finger of the hand wielding it. And the club’s head was not a mere thick mass of wood, but was curved as an old man’s staff, forming something akin to a hammer-head, on the edge of which Talizima had embedded a thin flint blade.

  “Now this is a club!” said Talizima with pride as he seized it from the wall and threw it to his son’s feet. “It is mine, but no matter. Use it in your quest.”

  Skillotz bent his spine to pick up his father’s club, as he grumbled:

  “Polished or unpolished, why should it matter if it crushes the skull of mine foe?”

  “What did you say?!”

  “Nothing father, nothing at all…”

  “Better nothing than what I thought I heard. Now let me finish this so you can go on your way.” And he continued painting.

  A heavy silence befell the house, a silence as heavy as Skillotz’s heart. Even Talizima noticed the heaviness, and tried to lighten the burden he himself had created:

  “What about the witnesses?” he asked. Two witnesses were to accompany him, as was the custom, to ensure he fulfilled his mission without cheating and to aid him if needed. “Have you chosen companions already?”

  “I have decided to bring Kolinzio with me.”

  “Kolinzio… Yes, he has his wits about him, all right. Good, good.”

  “Though not of my own blood, he could be my twin. Not in age, for he is seven years mine elder, but in heart. He has always been a good friend, always been there when I needed him. Furthermore…”